Monday Morning Update 11/7/22

Top News

Roche, the world’s largest biotechnology company, unifies its 30-solution digital health portfolio under the brand Navify.

The company’s products include oncology decision support, tumor board, mutation profiler, digital pathology, results tracking, and infection management.

Roche acquired oncology software vendor Flatiron Health for $1.9 billion in April 2018.

Reader Comments

From Itsme: “Re: TeleTracking. At least 40 people lost their jobs last week. Most folks were on the client-facing side.” Unverified. I unsuccessfully searched the company’s website and press releases looking for a media contact so that I could inquire.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

A great number of providers are apparently insulting their patients-slash-customers by shoving a blank form at them that asks for information that they already have on file. I’m repeating myself in saying that I question how intentionally duplicated information is reconciled and by whom, whether the provider will review only the form’s contents instead of the better-vetted information from the EHR, and why providers think that blank forms are better than letting the patient review an EHR-generated document and the noting any corrections. You would order less frequently from Amazon if its website or app required you to manually enter your name, shipping address, and credit card information every single time.

New poll to your right or here: Would you pay a $250 add-on fee to your conference registration to opt out of having the organizer share or sell your contact information? A reader pointed out that the business model of conferences includes selling the contact information of prospects to vendors, so registrants would have to bear more of the cost if they throttle back on the “ladies drink free” model. I conclude that the amount that you are willing to pay to avoid any particular frustration (a toll road, VIP tickets, or a concierge MD) is a better indicator of the issue’s true importance than the number and passion of the complaints about it.

One of my favorite email tricks is sticking a period somewhere before the “@” in my address, which makes that email address look unique even though Gmail treats it like my real one. Example: email addressed to mr.histalk@gmail.com will actually be sent to mrhistalk@gmail.com, giving me an infinite number of seemingly unique addresses for free trials and such. A reader provides a similarly clever way to tell which companies are selling your email information, which takes advantage of the fact that Gmail ignores characters that follow a plus sign entered to the left of the @ sign. Example: sign up for the HIMSS conference using mrhistalk+himss23@gmail.com and any emails sent there will be delivered to mrhistalk@gmail.com, but with the full address listed so you know who shared your information. These tricks could be foiled by sites or bulk emailers that strip off the extra characters, but I doubt that’s common.

For folks who just can’t figure out the EDT versus EST thing, your confusion won’t be obvious again until March 12. Or never, if you instead just use ET.

If your company sponsors HIStalk and is participating in the HLTH conference, complete this form by Wednesday and I’ll list you in my conference guide.

Thanks to the following companies that recently supported HIStalk. Click a logo for more information.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

The Global X Telemedicine and Digital Health (EDOC) exchange-traded fund has lost 27% of its value since its inception on July 30, 2020, while the Nasdaq is down 4% and the S&P 500 is up 15%. EDOC has also performed worse than both indices in the past 12 months. 

People

Inflo Health hires Angela Adams, RN (Jvion) as CEO.

Government and Politics

In the UK, NHS nurses will likely strike nationally for the first time in the next few weeks over compensation, with patient waiting lists expected to grow even longer.

Other

Forbes profiles Humana’s use of a virtual assistant to reduce the documentation burden of its clinicians. The company says that 80% of clinician time was being spent documenting rather than interacting with patients, and using the tool that it named Allie has freed up 15% of their time. Allie was built using technology from Automation Anywhere.

A Madison, WI-based non-profit news site runs a well-written piece on Epic. Snips:

• Epic walked away gracefully from its $624 million VA patient scheduling pilot programs when the VA chose Cerner in a $16 billion no-bid contract, which may benefit Epic in the long run since Epic has since enhanced its market position instead of bogging down in government work.
• Epic has 12,500 employees and $3.8 billion in annual revenue versus Cerner’s 27,000 employees and $6 billion in revenue, but Cerner continues to lag product-wise, is losing premium customers to Epic while selling mostly to price-sensitive ones, and was laying off employees when Oracle pursued its acquisition.
• Epic has built all of its products and they integrate well, while Oracle Cerner grew by acquiring unrelated products that were bolted together.
• Epic says it’s too early to say if it will collaborate with Oracle Cerner on the national database of patient records that Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison has announced, with Epic saying that connecting to Cosmos can’t happen until Epic gains understanding about the reliability of Oracle Cerner’s data, its method of de-identifying patient data, and its willingness to legally agree not to sell patient data commercially.
• Observers say that Oracle Cerner prospects may be spooked by Cerner’s history and the Oracle acquisition and may buy Epic instead.
• Oracle has a history of making grand promises about developing new products when acquiring companies, but the end result is usually only that Oracle tries to sell more of its existing products to the acquired customers.

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
Get HIStalk updates.
Send news or rumors.
Contact us.